Structural Difficulties
by Tamoline
Summary: Structural difficulties. Two words. Multiple meanings.


Author's note:

Written for sweetjamielee's "Everything Changes" 2014 TGW Ficathon. Prompt: Kalinda/Alicia - Structural Difficulties

* * *

"Structural difficulties?" echoed Alicia, staring at Kalinda in disbelief. "Is that a joke?"

Kalinda twitched one shoulder in a laconic shrug, leaning against the wall of Alicia's office as if she owned the place. (Alicia had offered her a seat. She'd apparently preferred to lean.) Sharp-edged amusement flashed briefly in the depths of her eyes.

"Well, it's not like I'm going to take you back to my apartment, is it?" she said, her voice drier than a desert.

Alicia winced, then covered the instinctive reaction by narrowing her eyes, fixing Kalinda with one of her best level stares. She might as well have been staring at a rock for all the effect it had. Well, maybe not a rock, per se, but perhaps a stone statue; one of those Indian goddesses with too many arms. In any case, it was probably time to change tactics.

"You know I didn't mean it like that," she said. She was striving for placating, but if there happened to be a touch of impatience in her voice, she could hardly be blamed for that. When she wished it, Kalinda Sharma could be a very frustrating woman.

In more ways than one.

"You said it," Kalinda pointed out. "Those exact words."

"Yes, but…" Alicia made herself stop talking before she said something they both regretted. She took a deep breath, then another, trying to think calming thoughts all the while, uncomfortably conscious of Kalinda's eyes on her. 'This would be so much easier if I didn't feel like I was in the wrong,' she thought crossly. And… maybe she should just have started there, difficult though it was. Maybe she should start again. "I'm sorry."

The words startled her a little. Maybe they startled Kalinda too. It was hard to say. Kalinda's face — her facade, rather — was enigmatic, giving nothing away. Just as always. (Aside from in those rare, less-guarded moments, that Alicia hadn't even realised she'd come to treasure.)

The moment gathered, pooled and then stretched like a rubber band. Alicia thought she could almost feel the tension thrumming through the air like a physical force, vibrating against her skin.

Kalinda's answer, when it finally came, made her startle a little at the sudden release of all that pent up silence.

"What for?"

She might have known Kalinda wouldn't make this easy. But then, if the positions were reversed, would Alicia have made it easy for her?

Not a chance.

She certainly never had before.

Instead of replying straight away, she took a moment to think about her words, to choose them as carefully as if she were presenting an argument in court. But this wasn't meant to be an argument. Maybe the opposite of that.

"It wasn't you I was irritated with. It was me. My life. My… mess." She took a deep breath. "I don't deal well with mess. I lashed out at you and I'm sorry."

There were other things she could have said. That she didn't realise until afterwards how it must have sounded to Kalinda, how it must have felt. That she hadn't meant to be so harshly dismissive. That she never intended to turn the weapon of her frustrations and fears against anyone but herself.

But Alicia wasn't going to go there. Not then and maybe not ever. If they didn't talk about it, didn't drag whatever-it-was out into the open, into the light, then things didn't have to change.

(Change hurt. Change always hurt. Even if it was for the better.)

She waited patiently — not anxiously; never that — for Kalinda's reply.

Kalinda shrugged again.

"Okay."

Alicia waited for her to continue, but that appeared to be the extent of her response.

"Okay? What does that mean?" Despite her best efforts, she couldn't keep some of her frustration from leaking into her voice. In response, Kalinda graced her with one of her rare, brief smiles.

"Apology accepted."

Alice blinked, then raised an eyebrow.

"Just like that?"

Instead of replying, Kalinda pushed away from the wall and sashayed across to Alicia's desk, stiletto-heeled boots silent on the carpet. Placing her palms flat on the edge, she leaned forward and kissed Alicia, no, captured Alicia's mouth with her own, made wordless demands with her lips and teeth and tongue.

(And if Alicia had reached up to meet her part-way, then that didn't have to mean anything she didn't want it to. Habit, after all, had a power all of its own.)

"Well," Kalinda breathed against Alicia's lips when they finally broke for air. "Maybe not *just* like that."

Suddenly, she swept her arm across the top of the desk, sending a small avalanche of papers and assorted nicknacks cascading to the floor. Alicia might have protested, but there were more important things on her mind. (For the moment, it was a price she was willing to pay. Anyway, this office was only temporary; not really *hers*.) Like her hands under Kalinda's shirt, palm sliding over smooth skin to cup the swell of her breast, to feel the hard bud of her nipple pressing against the gauzy material of her bra. Like Kalinda's surprisingly strong arms hauling her up onto the newly-cleared space (or bracing her as she made her own way up there; or maybe both at once). Like Kalinda pushing up her skirt, sliding down her tights and panties until they bunched inelegantly around her knees. But this wasn't elegant, or tidy, or anything like the order and neatness and control Alicia told herself she needed in her life. This was messy and wanton and want and surrender and *need*. This was Kalinda plying her clever, wicked fingers between Alica's legs, at first slowly, gently, and then faster and harder, fucking her until she panted and writhed and clutched at Kalinda's back with her other hand (digging in her nails just a little), as the pressure mounted and mounted and mounted within her; until the wave broke and she climaxed with a short, stifled cry…

(Staring into Kalinda's deep, dark eyes; fleeting flicker of an expression that looked a lot like wonder.)

… and then fell back down to earth once more.

As the glow of pleasure starts to wane, consciousness of her surroundings starts to filter back in. Alicia became uncomfortably aware that she was spread out across her desk, exposed, and that Kalinda was looking down at her with an expression very reminiscent of the cat that got the canary.

And that Kalinda's hand was still resting between her legs.

She started to suggest that they relocate to somewhere more… appropriate, but before she could finish the sentence, the desk beneath them let out the most peculiar groaning sound. By silent, mutual agreement, Alicia and Kalinda started to disentangle themselves and get up, but it was too late.

There was a tremendous, echoing crack, and then they were falling; crashing to the ground to sprawl ungracefully amidst the wreckage of what had been Alicia's new (temporary) desk.

For a long moment, silence reigned over the office. The two of them stared at each other. Alicia's lips twitched. Kalinda quirked an eyebrow. They both drew breath to speak.

"Structural difficulties," they sighed as one.

And then they laughed.


End file.
